Amid mass protests against police brutality and systemic racism ongoing in the United States, RSP contributor Ben Marcus speaks with Andre Willis and Carleigh Beriont about race and religion in this month's Discourse episode.

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About this episode

In our June 2020 episode of Discourse, RSP contributor Ben Marcus speaks with Andre Willis, associate professor of religious studies at Brown University, and Carleigh Beriont, PhD candidate at Harvard University. They begin by discussing how the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other Black Americans exemplify rituals of state violence and technologies of white supremacy in the United States. Amid mass protests against police brutality and systemic racism ongoing in the United States right now, the guests highlight the story of Martin Gugino, a 75-year-old member of the Catholic Worker Movement who was injured protesting, as well as President Trump’s much derided photo opportunity in response to those protests. The conversation then pivots to recent reports that invoke threats of the apocalypse, including the Trump administration decision to consider resuming explosive testing of nuclear weapons. Finally, still enduring a global and now months-long COVID-19 pandemic, the guests look at ongoing religious responses to prohibitions against some in-person religious services and the emerging court battles over worship under restrictions on social distancing.

Resources suggested by the guests include:

On the Protests in the United States

On Nuclear Testing

ON COVID-19 and Louisville

For more, consider consulting the following:

Finally, for those seeking additional critical perspectives from religious studies scholars we can strongly recommend this blog post at Feminist Studies in Religion by Megan Goodwin and Yohana Agra Junker, “This is Not an Antiracist Reading List, OR, the Treachery of Allyship.”

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